SaveABunny Blog

SaveABunny is an award-winning rabbit rescue organization based in Mill Valley, California.
We work with shelters all across Northern California to make sure homeless rabbits get the second chance they deserve. We never euthanize. Even special needs rabbits that may never get adopted are given love and care for as long as we have them.
We're a non-profit organization, which means 100% of our help comes from dedicated volunteers and generous donations.
To learn more, visit www.saveabunny.org.

Posts Tagged ‘call for action’

“Oh but it’s just one rabbit,” you say. “Oh but he’ll be happier in the wild running around with cottontails and jackalopes,” you say. “Oh but I’m an irresponsible jerk who didn’t bother to learn about rabbits before getting one and now I can’t keep/afford/stand my rabbit so I’m just gonna drop the little bugger off on the side of the road and forget about him,” you say.

If you’ve ever wondered why we insist on spaying and neutering all our rabbits before we adopt them out, this should give you a pretty good answer. They’re rabbits. They breed. Think about it.

We save bunnies because we like bunnies. Not because we like saving them.

At SaveABunny, we work in partnership with Bay Area shelters and other organizations, taking in rabbits that they don’t have room for or are about to euthanize. But sometimes (way more often than we’d like, in fact,) we don’t have enough room, either.

On Saturday 10 rabbits were rescued by Sonoma County Animal Services. This is from the email we got:

We have 10 rabbits that arrived at the shelter today. We have 6 female
babies, 1 female adult, and 3 male adults (one we were unsure of). The adult
female along with the adult male was in pretty good condition.
Unfortunately the other 8 have severe urine scalding. The 6 babies and the adult lionhead were the worst. We bathed all of the rabbits using bunny bath:) and tried to get as much of the urine off as we could. We didn’t bathe 1 of the
adult males because he seemed to be pretty clean. From what I heard the
scalding was caused because of their horrific living conditions.

The officer that transported them had told me that the cages themselves
looked pretty clean but what the previous owner had done was put a whole bunch
of lettuce in the cage. All the lettuce in the cage was preventing the
urine and feces to drain down to the bottom tray so the rabbits were basically
sitting in the feces and urine.

If you’re wondering what urine scalding is…

this might give you a pretty good idea

Sorry it’s not the most pleasant thing to read about – but if I only wrote happy blog entries, this would be a severely skewed view of animal rescue.

If you’re in the Bay Area, let us know if you can foster to help us make room for these bunnies. Here are a couple more photos of them:

It goes without saying that SaveABunny does not condone the consumption of bunnies. We spend a lot of time and energy trying to, you know, save them.

So when we see rabbit on the menu at local restaurants, our knee-jerk reaction is to grab the waiter by the apron and cry at him, “How could you??? THEY’RE BUNNIES FOR CHRIST SAKE! BUNNIES!!!” Fortunately we’re able to contain ourselves (most of the time), but unfortunately for those restaurants, we have a blog with which to let out all that pent-up frustration.

Before I go naming names, I’m going to back up a little and try to give this issue a fair analysis. Because it’s not just one or two restaurants – it’s a growing trend. And it’s restaurants we used to like, serving people who care about the same things we do. (Except apparently bunnies.) So what’s the deal?

A report was released by the UN a couple years ago about how the livestock industry is a larger factor in global warming than transportation. That’s right – you might drive a Prius and carry canvas bags with you to Whole Foods, but if you’re still eating steak, we get to blame you when Florida disappears. (Or was it thank you?) Now if you haven’t heard about this yet, it’s not because I’m making it up – it’s because no one cares. The agriculture industry is in the pockets of every politician between Fresno and – well, anyway, I’m not here to rant. I’m here to talk about bunnies. My point is, it’s the high-end, organic, local-produce-touting restaurants that are serving rabbit – because it’s more eco-friendly than beef. Which sucks because we liked the high-end, organic, local-produce-touting restaurants. I mean come on, we’re based in Marin.

I can’t really argue with their reasoning – I’ve mentioned how eco-friendly rabbits are before. I might even be flattered that I somehow influenced their decision – if they weren’t TOTALLY MISSING THE POINT AND KILLING THEM INSTEAD OF LOVING THEM.

What I can do is say this, to all of you who might go to these restaurants or work in them or even own them:

1. “Meat rabbits” are not somehow different than pet rabbits. Many of the rabbits we rescue were bred and raised for meat, and they are loving, affectionate, intelligent creatures who make wonderful pets.

2. “Eco-friendly” does not mean cruelty-free. The rabbits raised for meat at these restaurants spend their lives in tiny cages, live short, unstimulating lives, and simply get culled when they get sick. They never get to run free, hop in the grass, stretch out in the sun, dig a hole, chew up a phonebook, do binkies on a fluffy bedspread, have their ears groomed by another bunny, or grow old. They’re born, they spend some time in a cage, and then they die. That’s it.

3. Rabbits are intelligent, social animals, who live ten years or more. They learn tricks, have unique personalities, and form lasting bonds with each other, with humans, and with other pets.

4. The real eco-friendly option is to not eat meat at all. As illustrated by the UN report on agriculture that I mentioned earlier.

On that note, the restaurants we no longer go to because they serve bunnies can be found here.

Happy Easter! We hope you have a great holiday and get to celebrate the Pagan goddess of fertility, or the resurrection of Christ, or the flowers blooming, or whatever it is that makes this weekend special to you – surrounded by family and loved ones. We also, of course, would love the same for all bunny rabbits. But even though Easter is the most popular time for pet rabbits, it’s also the worst time.

Most families who decide to get a pet rabbit for Easter have no idea what it takes to care for a rabbit – and if you’re one of those considering it, please take a moment to visit our website and learn what you’re getting into. This blog also has a lot of first-hand stories and valuable information for anyone considering getting a rabbit.

Shortly after Easter every year, animal shelters everywhere are bombarded by abandoned rabbits. More often than not, these are young animals, who after briefly knowing the love of human companionship, are neglected, then simply tossed away. Rabbits are intelligent animals with lifespans of ten or more years – not a holiday decoration. Make sure your friends family know this too, and if you want to help prevent rabbits from overloading shelters and being euthanized after Easter, you can learn more here, and, of course, come to the SaveABunny Bake Sale this Saturday.

Of course we would all be perfectly content just knowing that our $30 is going to a good cause. We don’t need anything back! It’s called giving for a reason! But thanks to those four little numbers (and one letter!), the kindness of our hearts has a little extra incentive.

Come tax season, you can subtract that $30 from your taxable income. Let’s say you made $29,687 last year – thanks to your donation, the government will now only tax you on $29,657. Of course $30 won’t exactly save you bridge fare, but a large enough donation can drop you right into a lower tax bracket. And if you can donate a few times a year, it really adds up.

So not only do you save money, but Dulciana gets the funds she needs to live a better life!

And it’s not just cash that’s tax-deductible. Gifts are, too! Any item from our Wishlist is a great place to start.

We’re all super excited about our new status here at SaveABunny, and we hope you are too! Come by and celebrate with us at the SaveABunny Bake Sale next month:

We know you have great stories and photo about your bunnies! Now you can share them in this new column! What a great way to boast about your bunny along with helping SaveABunny, talk about win-win!

Please see the below from columnist Eileen Mitchell for more info:

I’ll be profiling readers and their pets. Readers will be invited to submit their personal stories, anecdotes and experiences (with photos) about a beloved pet, past or present.

Just one thing: It’s important that submissions go directly to the Chronicle so they can track the amount of feedback the column is getting. Please request that all submissions (and high res photos) go to home[at]sfchronicle.com and put in the subject line: “Eileen Mitchell – pet tales.”

Broadening the Sales and Use Tax to Include Certain Services: Effective February 1, 2009, the sales and use tax rate will be applied to appliance and furniture repair, vehicle repair, golf, and veterinarian services. Effective March 1, 2009, the sales and use tax rate will be applied to amusement parks and sporting events. This is expected to generate additional General Fund sales tax revenue of $357 million in 2008-09.

Oh, ok, well it is a recession and everythi- wait, he wants to tax veterinarian services????

Now, from the point of view of someone who has probably only ever owned several-thousand-dollar, purebred animals, if any, I can see how maybe a pet seems like a luxury. It doesn’t make him a good pet owner if he sees them that way, but I can see some logic in the train of thought, at least.

But how many people paying vet bills see their animals as a luxury? And that’s what this means – under California law, pets will become a luxury, because in order to have a pet, it must be properly taken care of or you could be fined or arrested for animal cruelty or neglect. And properly taken care of means shots, neutering, check-ups, and care into old age.

By Schwarzenegger’s logic, foster and adopted children are a luxury. Aging parents who we choose to care for and bring into our homes are a luxury. Disabled siblings and spouses who we choose to support are a luxury.

Not only is this proposal poorly thought out, it’s discriminatory, classist, and inhumane.

I try to keep this blog politically neutral, but this is an issue that directly effects everyone in California who has a pet or is thinking about getting a pet, and morally, it should effect everyone, everywhere who has ever cared for another living being. So I hope you can forgive me this once.

I also have some contention with the vehicle repair bit, but that’s just unrelated.

As many of you may already know, rabbits can be extremely opinionated. I’m certain that if all the animals suddenly could talk to us and read newspapers and stuff, rabbits would be the first to go out and get themselves voting rights. No matter who or what they voted for, they would definitely make their opinions heard with a resounding “thump,” and by gum they would go out there on election day and vote. (Unless maybe there was a clover patch on the way and they got distracted.)

So take a lesson from the rabbits and go out there and vote November 4th!

Then when you’re done, come up to SaveABunny and check out some bunnies from one of the most opinionated (not to mention curious, comical, and smart) breeds: the Dutch.

I shop online. You shop online. Everyone except my grandma shops online, and that’s about to change now that she finally got her internet working. Americans spend millions and millions and millions of dollars online – so how awesome would it be if even a small percentage of that massive pile of consumer money could go to the organization of your choice, without costing you anything?

It would pretty frickin’ awesome. That’s why we got all excited when we learned about iGive. Over 700 companies have teamed up with them to donate a percentage of your online purchases to whatever organization you like. It sounds crazy but it actually makes sense for the companies – by having you shop through iGive (which is really simple – see the entire merchant list here), not only do they cleverly associate themselves with your favorite cause, making you more inclined to shop there, but they also don’t have to pay for the advertising they’re getting until a purchase has already been made – giving them a huge return on investment. (Sorry, I’m a total advertising geek. Didn’t mean to make you fall asleep there.) Anyways, it’s genius. And SaveABunny is one of the organizations you can have them donate to.

I signed up on my lunch break a couple weeks ago and realized I could make almost ALL of my online purchases through them. Clinique and Origins are on the list. Blick Art Materials is on the list. Gardens Alive gives a pretty significant 6%. When I buy a new MacBook through iGive this fall, SaveABunny will get about ten bucks. Adobe is on the list – imagine 3.2% of the cost of your entire office upgrading to Creative Suite 4 going to SaveABunny. That could save a lot of bunnies.

So, in conclusion, check out iGive. The bunnies will thank you for it. In their own way. By being cute.

Just to let everyone know, we still have several other bunnies that urgently need medical care, and it won’t happen without donations. We’re very happy to have Brazil’s operation funded, but we still need about $1500 for other bunnies with medical problems right now.

I love reporting happy endings to keep the blog on an uplifting note, but there is always more to be done, more rabbits to save, and more money needed. We are a non-profit, after all. So I hope that when I mention the generosity of a donor or volunteer, you realize that they are someone just like you who took action, and I hope you feel inspired, rather than relieved that someone else stepped in.

That’s all – now back to finding less guilt-trippy things to write about. Here’s a cute bunny picture for you: